Month: June 2015

This afternoon there will be a Westminster Hall debate on the”future of the Human Rights Act 1998″. The debate is brought by Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat MP. This is not, therefore, an official ‘government business’ debate.

In the United Kingdom the Court is often criticised for being made up of ‘unelected’ judges. In fact, the judges at Strasbourg are elected, and, indeed, four new judges were elected to the Court recently. These were the judges in respect of Armenia, Latvia, Luxembourg and Monaco (for more details see Prof Antoine Buyse’s ECHR blog here). The details of the newly elected judges will soon appear on the Court’s web site, where all the current judges on the Court (including their c.v.s) are listed by seniority (time on the Court) (here).

The Court is made up of full-time professional judges, the number being equal to the number of High Contracting Parties to the Convention (47). Each judge sits for a single term of nine years. The criteria for office are set out in Article 21 of the Convention. The procedure for electing judges is found in Article 22 of the Convention, and see also Article 23.

It will be noted that under these procedures it is down to each State Party to draw up a list of three candidates Continue reading →

“This Library Note draws on recent political developments to provide a concise background to ongoing discussions about human rights and civil liberties in the UK. It has been written to support the debate in the House of Lords on this subject on 2 July 2015. The scope of the discussion can be very widely drawn and so this Library Note focuses on the Government’s plans for the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998, and its subsequent replacement with a new British Bill of Rights, alongside issues raised by other legislative proposals such as the Investigatory Powers Bill. Other recently passed Acts of Parliament are also briefly discussed, including the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015”.